consolation for a fool

Note: I wrote this post in the first 2 weeks of medical school, and my outlook has much changed since.  I actually (and surprisingly) enjoy it very much now -- now that I've figured out how to balance my time more wisely, and study more efficiently.  I wasn't going to post this - because I didn't want to give the impression that I still felt this way. After speaking about it over dinner with a dear friend - a dear friend who reads my blog - last night however, I've become convinced that I could post it without leaving that impression. So here it goes:

I'm worse than a New Year's resolution.  Really though.

A couple posts ago (or, should I say, a couple 1,000 pages of medical texts ago), I wrote about how my primary goal would be to stay happy in medical school.  As long as I was passing, I was fine.  No need to gun through this.  No need to lose hours of sleep in order to crawl my way up in the class rankings.

Well, breaking news:  turns out, in medical school, people lose hours of sleep just trying to keep up.  Screw skipping naps to blow the curve..... skip the nap to skim by.  I shit you not.

I've lost a lot of sleep.  I've cried 2 and a half (or maybe more?) times.  I've questioned myself.  So yeah, that New Year's resolution about staying happy? Like any good American, broke it 6 days in.

Somewhere between the 40 pound backpack, pouring vinegar and baking soda into my washing machine (along side fabric softener and normal detergent) to rid the formaldehyde stink from my scrubs, the forgetting of how to draw the brachial plexus, trying to find an empty spot in my datebook so I could go get toilet paper, and the double shots of espresso; I cried.  And I cried really fucking hard.

The worst part about the tears? I couldn't figure out what was causing them.  Sure, you know, it's depressing when you suddenly don't have time to go get toilet paper from the store.  And it's a weird feeling to spend your time studying about how precious and fragile our backs are, all the while your own damn backpack weighs well over the healthy limit. It's rough --- but I've been in similar (though less extreme) predicaments before, and I've dealt with it relatively better than this.  So, as per usual, I called my dad -- my own personal Atticus Finch.

At first, I was hesitant to let him know that anything was wrong.  I don't know if I've said this before, but I'm a grown ass woman.  As our conversation dwindled down, however, the act became a little harder to follow through with than anticipated.  He tried to say good night to me, and my eyes started filling up with pools of real tears and a giant egg grew in my throat.  The type of egg that hatches into sobs the minute you try to speak.  So I tried to whisper something like, "I miss you." And then yeah, my act was caput. 

I spilled everything to him.  The backpack, the toilet paper, the feelings of intellectual inadequacy, the lack of sleep, the everything.

He asked what upset me the most, and I told him that above everything else, I felt alone.  Alone in that I felt like everyone else in my class was so much smarter than me. Everyone but me had time. Everyone else was on top of their game, and I felt like I was two weeks behind for the first practice.... I told him that maybe -- just maybe, if I knew that someone else felt the way I did -- like maybe that they were struggling too, I'd feel better. I wouldn't feel so alone.

He sat quietly on the other line for a while, and then spoke up....

"Mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos (pendejos)"

My mom will kill me for saying this, but I don't speak spanish too well.  I've got my curse words down, but everything else is a little ....unrefined. So naturally, all I picked up from what he said was 'pendejo.'

"Dad..." (doing the laugh sob laugh thing), "did you really just call me a pendejo?"  

Turns out he didn't.  Or kind of didn't. His advice came from a spanish proverb --- but his meaning varies a bit from what Google has to say about it.

It means that the misery of many is a fool's best consolation. 

This is where the "kind of didn't call me a pendejo" comes in.  Yes, I'm the fool in the proverb, but no, he didn't mean that I was a fool.  He meant that - in some circumstances in life (particularly the ones in which you're doing all you can in order to not need consolation), the only thing you can do is to look to others.  All I could do to feel better was to talk to my classmates - who were busting their asses as much as I am - and learn that they too, were miserable.

I didn't take his advice lightly. 

SO... on Monday morning whenever a classmate asked how I was doing, I answered truthfully.  Something like, "shitty. I studied all weekend, and I still feel like I'm 2 weeks behind."

The response I received was just how my father said it would be.... consoling.  It turned out that my classmates (or most of them at least) felt the same way.  I wasn't alone.

 I was one fool studying medicine with a bunch of other fools. Fools whose backpacks were too heavy, who were forgetting the brachial plexus, who were desperately experimenting with how to get eau de formaldehyde out of their scrubs.... Fools who had trouble finding time to buy toilet paper too.

a brief message on staying busy.

I like being occupied... and pre-occupied.  Call me hard to please, but I can't stand being left alone to my own thoughts or own little creative activities. Not for too long. I need something more. I like having a full schedule that occupies my time, and then some.

Medical school has filled that schedule --- fulfilled that need.

Sure, I've gotten a little sad at times. Cried a couple times (the post about this will come later).  Thought for a couple of hours that I was giving up my 20s for good, and more days than not, I probably wouldn't get to see the afternoon sun.  Thought I'd be stuck in a lab.. or a hospital.. or a library... and when I'd finally get to go outside before nightfall, I'd have grey hair and I'd still be single, but I'd have an MD to my name. And really, those things might actually be true..

But I've begun to accept it all, and I've come out of it for the better.  I learned something.  

I appreciate the sun more when I don't always get to see her.

I appreciate my free time more when it doesn't come around too often.

When there's a reason to laugh now, I cock my head back and take full advantage.  And when I have time to listen to music, I belt out the words along with it.  I appreciate those opportunities... Sure, before I appreciated them, but not as much.  

There's a reason why it's called gross.

Before I say anything, I want to make it clear that under no circumstance whatsoever will I disclaim any information about the sex of, details of, or anything along those lines about the cadaver.  I am very appreciative to the men and women who have donated their bodies so that we may become well-educated in what is the foundation of our medical careers, and I whole-heartedly respect anyone who plans to do the same one day. This post is simply about my reaction to my lab experience, and nothing further.

I wondered if I'd faint today.  After all, my track record isn't the best.  I've gotten overheated, dizzy, woozy, vision-going-into-a-pin-point, elephant-sitting-on-your-chest over less climactic events.  I surprised myself today though.  We completed step #1 (turning over the cadaver), I walked away, gagged four times, started getting teary-eyed (partially because of the gagging, mostly because I wanted to cry), and then walked back to my lab partners.  All four of them looked pretty concerned.  One of them offered me a bucket, and another promised that he'd catch me if I fainted.  I decided then and there that there wouldn't be any fainting... Momma didn't raise a pansy ass.

The importance (for me anyway) in being an -ISH.

This weekend, my big sister warned me that I was about to enter the land of Type A personalities. A secret that, as a Type A-***ISH*** personality myself, I had already figured out.

I'd really like to think of myself as a mixture between the two of them.

There's the A in me that stresses over grades, forgets to sleep or eat if my study time forgets to allow me, and will kill you if you touch a highlighter to my notes.  I don't like talkers in no-talking zones at the library, and I've been known to do something about it.  I'll delete my facebook if there's an exam in the near future. I stress. I work hard.  But.... there's a but to this:

There are some things --- some stressors, that I could genuinely give a rat's ass about.  Like, for example, when my class argued (for what seemed like a kajillion hours) about whether to use "I" or "we" for our class oath we had to recite yesterday.  The oath is important -- and I get that, but I'm not going to get heated over a pronoun. Or, when Jimmy (the gunner I wrote about in my last post) politely asked if we could make the oath more "succinct and concise," and another of my classmates straight up yelled at him for "not taking it seriously enough," I couldn't help but laugh.  But those are just two examples---- two of many more that I could choose from.

The B in me enjoys relaxing on my back porch with buddies, a good beer, and barbeque. The B in me laughs it off when Type A's take themselves too seriously. The B in me doesn't give a shit about pronouns unless we're sitting in an English class.  It's the B in me that shaped my recently found approach to handling medical school: get shit done, but more importantly: stay happy.

I don't want to be depressed.  I don't care if I'm not #1 in my class...... or #30...... or if I'm #100. As long as I'm passing, I'll be a happy girl.  And if I do get higher grades than passing, well then bravo for me. I know that stress will be inevitable, but I'd like to keep the stress related to studying ---- and nothing else.  Which means no stressing about grades because they are no better than passing and no stressing over pro-nouns... I don't want to cross over to the wholly type A side.... I'm happy at the ISH side with Jimmy where we belong.

stress relief for the stressers

One of my favorite peers (and everyone's favorite gunner*), Jimmy, asked me about my garden a couple months ago.  The conversation went something like this:

"So is your garden supposed to serve as a stress reliever for while you're in medical school?"

"Yes, what's yours going to be?"

"....beer."

He's that type of guy.  I appreciate his honesty --- and the fact that he can blow curves out of the water but is still willing to enjoy adult beverages with you on the weekends.  But back to the point.

cuttin' the cord.

My mother and I have had a lot of trouble getting along lately. 

The lack of getting along part, however, has nothing to do with the typical mother-daughter arguments. Or at least, they're atypical by my definition of the word.  They have nothing to do with embarrassing dances in public or missing Sunday mass or dating rebels who drive motorcycles.  It's not that.  I wouldn't bore you with that. What we have here is a classic example of the motherly anxiety associated with the youngest of chicks (bu-dum-cha) ready to fly the coop.

Her argument: you're too young

My argument: I'm a grown ass woman

flying again

My sister and I have always had a very special relationship with my Grandmother.  The hands you see holding the leash in the picture to the left, after all, belong to her.  Come to think of it, a lot of who I am belongs to her...

Now that Grandma Roo is 95, Veronica* and I have found it even more difficult to decline any of her requests.  If she asks us to take a trip to the gas station at 9 AM for lottery tickets, we oblige.  When she signals a hand gesture for more wine, we pour (as long as my mother is not in the near vicinity).  When she asks us to dance in public places, we throw our self-consciousness away, and boogie.  And when she asked me to write this post, I picked up a pencil. 

It seems like a billion years ago that a family of birds moved onto our back patio.  In reality, their move-in was a couple months ago.  My dad was still walking around healthily, my mom had no broken bones, and my grandmother was still in a wheel chair after her recent hip fracture.  A lot has changed since then.  As you may be well aware, a lot of things happening in a little bit of time can turn a fortnight into a light-year.  So the birds moved in about a billion years ago.